


The Spy Who Loved Me

by kinginspanx



Category: James Bond (Movies), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Fanart, Harry is 20, I'm not using the movie's timeline, M/M, Merlin is 30, Not Canon Compliant, Pre Canon, There's Q from Skyfall, blood tw, idek what to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:24:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinginspanx/pseuds/kinginspanx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Hart, the newest addition to Kingsman's knights, was infamous for not being able to keep his missions in a "strictly business" manner. He knew he was going to be in deep trouble with Arthur when he found out that the older Scotsman--whom he seduced and spent the night with--was an MI6 00 agent. And even worse, they were both ordered to track down and eliminate the same terrorist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have this thing with young Harry with older Merlin. I thought it'd be fun writing about an emotionally detached and usually stoic field agent!Merlin being thrown off his guard by young!Harry's boyish charm.
> 
> This fic is a bit all over the place. It's not following the canon of either fandom. I'm basically just taking any characters I like from Skyfall to put in here. Also the timeline doesn't follow the movie. I don't even want to try writing this fic with 80s tech, I really don't have the knowledge. So all the tech in here are recent.
> 
> Merlin is 007 in here, let's just say he's James Bond predecessor.
> 
> WARNING: blood tw for the 2nd illustration.

 

They first met at a gala dinner in Cannes where Harry was undercover as a wealthy British trust fund kid. He set himself up to be the target of the enemy so that they would capture him and he’d find their whereabouts or the main leader of the terrorist group.

* * *

 

“Dreadfully dull party, isn’t it?” said a deep voice with the poshest accent that Sean had ever heard. He turned around and was greeted by the sight of a tall young man with a slick brown hair in a blue velvet jacket. He was walking in the most graceful pace, with a glass of champagne on his right hand, and the left stylishly tucked inside his trousers’ pocket. Their eyes met, and Sean couldn’t take his eyes off the young man’s pearly hazel brown iris, his adorable dimples, and those seemingly innocent smile.

“Quite right” said Sean. _For fuck’s sake, he’s your bloody asset. Get a shittin’ grip Sean_.

“Alistair De Vere” the young man offered his hand.

“Sean Craig” Sean tried to look as professional as possible. He’s usually not this distracted on mission, he’s been known to be the most emotionally detached agent among the 00s, but tonight, he had to admit that he’s not.

“Mr. Craig” the young man gave him a royal smile that borderline on smugness. “You don’t know how ecstatic I was to have finally found a handsome face in this room after endless conversation with these boring old millionaires” he said plainly, not giving a single hint to the flirtatious words slipped in his sentence.

Sean paused and tried to read the young man’s face for a second. He didn’t expect to be flirted by his own asset this early in the mission. He let out a soft chuckle. The young man took a sip of his champagne while locking his sharp gaze on Sean. Sean found himself not being able to move, like he was mesmerised by the young man’s eyes.

“May I inquire what’s a perfectly lovely gentleman like you doing in this party? I mean, this is hardly _the_ party of the season” asked Alistair as he moved closer to Sean.

There was something about his smile that left Sean on the edge of either wanting to punch him in the face or devour those smug lips of his. M had told him to keep his distance with the asset, but it was not his fault if the asset was the one who approached him, right?

“I have a project in need of financing, I was hoping some acquaintenship with these… old boring millionaires, might help” Sean could see Alistair was finally noticing his Scottish brogue.

“A smashing jawline _and_ a Scottish accent? You are full of delightful surprises, Mr. Craig” There was that coy smirk again. “Well, I’m not old—and I’m sure as hell am not boring—but I do however have a little spare of money that might help this project of yours” he paused to give Sean his mesmerising gaze again.

“So what do you say we head out to my little yacht out there” Alistair moved even closer to Sean, he snuck his head beside Sean’s and whispered to his ears, “And you can tell me about this interesting project of yours”.

Sean’s skin crawled as he felt the warm vibration of the young man’s breath in his ear. _Fuck_.

 

* * *

 

 

Harry woke up and felt a warm embrace on his chest. The Scotsman was lying beside him, fast asleep, with his hand placed comfortably around Harry. He could feel the older man’s steady pulse pounding on his chest as their skin touched.

Harry didn’t have a pristine record when it comes to keeping his missions in a “strictly business” manners. He had lost count on how many times Arthur scolded him for sleeping with his target’s significant others. But what could he do? Missions can be terribly boring most of the time. But last night—Harry paused to remember the exact moment he caught the first glimpse of the man lying beside him—last night was surprisingly impulsive, even for his standard.

Harry’s gaze traced along the man’s body. He wondered what really drove him to such impulse. The older man was bald, yet Harry couldn’t stop touching those sleek surface as he thrust his body against him last night. The man’s voluntary instinct to let Harry took the top was also an endearing surprise. Most men he slept with usually thought that he was a bottom—which always annoyed him—maybe it was his lanky figure, or his faint flamboyant youthfulness. So Harry greatly appreciated Sean’s gentlemanly gesture.

 _Maybe it was that fucking jawline_ , Harry thought to himself. _Or that deliciously deep Scottish brogue_. How he wished for Sean to scream his real name with that dark voice of his last night. Harry leered his gaze along the man’s collarbone and noticed a scar. He paused as he realised the most probable cause of that scar.

He gently removed the older man’s hand from his chest and quietly got up from the bed. He stood beside the bed and made a second careful look at the man’s body. There were several scars along his hands and chest. _Fuck. Not again_. Harry looked around the room for their whiskey glasses from last night. The room was a fucking mess. Both of them were in their wildest spirit last night. Harry could already see some bruises and marks on his arms.

He finally found the glasses and took it outside. He made sure that the man was still sound asleep as he closed the door quietly. Harry then went over to the bar and stood in front of the painting hung on the wall behind it. He quietly push the painting bottom right corner to the left and traced the surface behind the painting with his skinny fingers. Once he found what he was looking for, he fixed his standing position and lowered his head in front of the wall.

“Galahad. Mission code AG548390” he said as a flash of light scanned his right eye. There was a sound of a click and a square section of the wall popped open. Harry took out a laptop and sat himself down at the bar. As he waited for the laptop to start, he reached for his Bremont watch on his left arm—he never takes it off, as the device is a Kingsman agent’s last piece of armory in any emergency situation—and twisted the crown. A digital writing appeared on the watch’s glasses and switched from “Amnesia” to “Scan”. Harry then pushed the crown towards the inner side and a flash of light burst out of the upper side of the watch’s case. He directed light towards the whiskey glass on the table and it scanned through the surface.

There was a beep sound coming from his laptop as the screen showed a digital scan of a fingerprint. Harry tapped one of the buttons on the keyboard and the program popped out a “Searching for match” dialogue box. Harry glanced at the bedroom door and checked for any sound of movement. There wasn’t. His bed partner was still sound asleep. Another beep sound came from the laptop and now Sean’s face was displayed on the screen with a complete background profile of his identity. It said “Sean Craig. MI6. Rank: 00. Codename: 007. Status: Active”.

“Fuck me” whispered Harry as he made a long grunt. _Bloody well done, Harry Hart. You have successfully shagged yet another person that you are not allowed to_. Harry pushed back his hair in frustration. He looked at his watch and found that it was 4 o’clock in the morning. Harry made a self deprecating chuckle. And to think that he actually liked the man.

 _Arthur is not going to be happy about this_.

 

* * *

 

Sean woke up to a sound of glasses breaking and furniture being knocked down. He jolted out of the bed with a gun—which he hid under the pillow—on his hand and quickly realised that his asset was not there. _FUCK_. He then went out of the bedroom to find 3 men in black combat gears covering Alistair’s head with a black fabric and tying his hands.

One of the men noticed Sean, and he barely had the time to hide as the intruder blasted shots at him with his machine gun. Sean hid behind the yacht’s luxury white sofa as he made a couple of shots to the intruders. One of them was hit on the shoulder and the other one on the head, dropping dead instantaneously. Sean chased the remaining two intruders as they headed to the dock. He couldn’t close the distance between them as the unwounded one was constantly firing at him. When Sean finally caught up to the docks, the intruders were already loading Alistair up on a helicopter. Sean tried to shoot them but he was too late.

 

* * *

 

“Let me get this straight. You had sex with your asset— _the_ person whom you should be protecting _and_ the one I _specifically_ ordered for you to keep a distance—spent the night at his yacht, and he was kidnapped right under your nose?!” shouted M.

“I will get him back, mam” answered Sean guiltily while facing his superior’s furious face on his Aston Martin’s dashboard screen.

“You better! What’s gotten into you 007?! You have never had any problem like this before! And he’s 10 years younger than you, for God’s sake! The boy just graduated from university!!!”

“I’m sorry, mam. It will never happen again”. Sean really couldn’t explain it. How was he suppose to explain that he was entranced by a 20 year old boy? How easily he was seduced by him? Everything seemed to happen so fast last night. That boy was like a black hole that kept sucking every fiber of his being. _How could it happen? I barely know him for less than a day_. Sean was really disappointed at himself.

“Did you manage to put any tracker on him?” asked M with a calmer tone, now that she’s let out most of her frustration.

“I didn’t. He was—“ Sean cleared his throat. “I only managed to put a tracker on his suit. He already changed to a different set of clothes when he was taken” said Sean as he tried to hide his embarrassment. “But I did manage to put one on one of his abductors. I’m heading to the location as we speak”. Sean stepped deeper on the gas pedal and changed the gear.

“I’ll have Q checked it out. I don’t want this to happen again, 007. Your first priority is to save the boy, the next is extracting some information from his abductors” ordered M.

“Yes, mam” answered Sean. _Hang in there kid. Don’t be dead yet_.

 

* * *

 

Sean creeped carefully in the midst of dead bodies that were scattered along the hallway. His mind was spiraling as he thought of dozens of scenarios on what had happened there. _Did another intelligence agency got here before him? The bloody CIA? Or possibly his target’s enemies? Another terrorist?_ Sean’s skin crawled as he imagined Alistair being caught in the middle of a fight between two powerful terrorists. He could only wish that the boy had survived somehow. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if Alistair died. Although looking at the trail of bodies, Sean was hardly optimistic. The boy looked like he could easily be broken in two despite having a well-defined muscular figure. _He was probably too posh for violence_ , thought Sean.

He finally found a door at the end of the hallway. It was half opened. Just as Sean quietly lurked to the door, he heard a familiar voice coming from the room.

“All of your men are dead. No one can save you now. So why don’t you save yourself the pain and start talking?”

Sean could feel the hair on his back standing as he saw the young man whom he shared last night with, standing in the middle of the room full of dead bodies with a man tied in a chair in front of him. He was wearing an off-white pajama underneath a maroon robe that was covered in fresh blood stains. His right hand was holding a bloodied knife, and in the blink of an eye, the boy thrusted it into the man’s thigh. The man screamed in agony.

“Or we can do this the hard way and you’re going to wish that I would just kill you in one shot” whispered Alistair.

“I don’t know anything!!! Please—“ the man shrieked.

Alistair sighed. “Let’s try this again”. He pulled out the knife from the man’s thigh and stabbed it into the man’s rib.

Sean stood by the door in horror as he watched the innocent-looking boy cold-bloodedly tortured the tied man with such ease.

“Who ordered you to kidnap me?” asked Alistair, his voice was calm and his face was stoic.

“I don’t know—please—I really don’t know!!!” shouted the man.

The boy then grabbed the knife—which was still stuck inside the man’s rib—and twisted it. The man screamed until he was hoarse.

“I told you, you’re going to beg me to kill you by the end of this if you don’t start talking” said Alistair coldly. He then harshly took the knife out of the man’s rib. He was getting ready to stab the knife again when the man finally decided to talk.

“WAIT!!! Nightingale!!! It’s—it was Frank Nightingale!” Alistair paused at the man’s words. He seemed to watch the man’s face for any indication of lies.

“What is he planning to do with all that uranium?” asked the boy.

“I DON’T KNOW!!! I really don’t know, I swear! Master Nightingale only talked about it with his right hand man. The rest of us only receive orders—PLEASE, I really don’t know!!!” pleaded the man.

 _Uranium? How did he know about the—Is he?_ Sean could not process what was happening in front of him. The scene was just too bizarre. Seeing the adorable posh boy he met last night torturing a man so casually, and having classified knowledge about _his_ mission. _Who the hell is he?!_ Sean tried to move to the back of one of the pillars in the room to get a better look at them, when he stepped on a body and made a noticeable sound. Within half a second a shot was fired just an inch from Sean’s face, penetrating the wall behind him.

“Sean…” the boy was facing him. Looking just as surprised as Sean. He slowly lowered his gun as he watched Sean’s reaction.

Alistair’s face was not the same. Gone was the playful innocent charm that lured Sean to his yacht last night, or the smug smile that had charmingly mesmerised him. His face was then decorated with blood splatters, and his pearly brown eyes were as black as blood under the moonlight.

The boy sighed. “I really wished you had not seen this”.

“Who the fuck are you? Alistair isn’t even your real name, is it?!” Sean finally regaining his senses and pointed his gun at Alistair.

There was a faint of sadness in the boy’s murderous eyes. “You should not have come here, Sean”.

Then in a blitz, the boy fired another shot at him. Sean didn’t have time to dock. He didn’t even see Alistair moving his arms. The shot scratched his right arm and pushed him back to the wall. By the time he regained his footing, Alistair was already gone, leaving the wounded man still tied to the chair.

Sean rushed to the wounded man. He was bleeding all over the place. His eyes were dazed, like he was asleep. “Hey, are you alright? I need you to stay conscious”. Sean gave the man a bit of a slap on the cheek.

“Come on, stay awake!” shouted Sean. The man grunted and his eyes came into focus. He stared at Sean in confusion.

Sean grabbed his face. “I need you to tell me what had happened here. Did that young man kill all of these people? Who is he—what did he want?!”

The man blinked twice. He looked around and was scared to death by the sight around him. “What—what happened?! What—“ he groaned in pain. “What young man?!”

“The young man that tortured you!!! He was just here—don’t you remember? You were just stabbed by him!” shouted Sean in frustration. He didn’t have the patience to deal with the man’s bullshit.

“Stabbed?!” the man looked down at his own body and noticed the stains of blood covering his right abdomen. “OH MY GOD!!! I’m bleeding!!! Help me!!! Get a doc—wait, where—where am?!”

 

* * *

 

 

“His most recent memories were wiped by zeta interacting protein. It’s a drug commonly used on PTSD patients to induce partial amnesia and erase painful memories” said a tall man with white hair and moustache who was standing in front of a giant monitor.

“You’re saying that the boy drugged him?” asked Sean.

“Yes, 007. Precisely that” said the old man.

“That’s impossible! The man was still talking lucidly a few seconds before the boy disappeared. He had nothing but knife and gun on his hands. How could he do it?!” asked Sean in an annoyed tone.

“Well, if you hadn’t lost him, maybe we would have found out!” answered the old man sarcastically.

Sean noticed the inappropriateness of the tone he used before. “Sorry, Q. I didn’t mean—“

“No use blaming yourself, 007” said a raspy female voice from the back. A small old lady was walking towards Sean and Q.

“Mam” said both Sean and Q at the same time, to which the old lady replied with a nod.

“None of us knew who he really was. His background was completely clean and thorough. Q had spotted the most sophisticated fake background before, but his? It was an entirely different level. The authenticity is terrifying” M said in a grim tone.

“Have you had any luck finding his real identity, Q?”

“No, mam. I couldn’t find a match in any database. I’ve checked with the CIA, KGB, Beijing—no one seemed to know him. I’ve tried tracing the documentation of his background profile but, again, it led to nowhere. Everything looks alarmingly normal” the old man looked defeated. Sean could sympathise, he had never felt this useless before.

“But I have my new junior tech coming in soon—he developed this brilliant facial recognition program that can search through almost every CCTV camera on the planet—ah, there he is!” Q pointed to the back of the room.

A young man with a rumpled hair and a pair of glasses were struggling to walk towards them as he carried two laptops and a coffee mug on his hands. He was wearing a brown cardigan and he looked like he was 15—or at least that’s what Sean thought.

“Sorry I’m late, Sir” he said.

“That’s alright, son. M, 007, this is Ben, he’s my new junior tech. Brilliant kid, he was the one who helped me cracked that cyberattack we had last month. Come on kid, show—“ Q was distracted by the horrified look on the boy’s face as he stared at Alistair's profile on the screen.

“Is—is this the person that killed all of those people?” he asked timidly.

“Yes, why? Do you know him?” asked Sean.

The boy turned to him. He looked like he’d just seen a ghost. “His name is Harry Hart. We went to Oxford together—but, he’s supposed to be dead!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boy Sean met was a ghost. There are no records of him anywhere. That is, until Q's junior tech came in and shocked everyone with the fact that he knew the boy from his time as a student in Oxford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native English speaker and I don't have any betas so there will often be grammatical errors in my fic that I'll only realise like a day or two after lol. So I apologise in advance.

“I only found out about the news from an email, he was reported to die in a car crash somewhere in Scotland—I even went to his funeral.” Ben looked a bit angry, like he was betrayed. He rushed to set up his laptop on one of the tables and opened what seemed to look like his personal email. Ben connected his laptop to the big screen, it showed an email blast of Harry Hart’s obituary.

“He must have faked the accident then” said M as she carefully read the obituary on the screen.

“Yes, but why? What kind of job he’d likely to take that requires faking a death?” Sean stared at Harry’s photo and noticed the young man’s birthday. _Jesus. This kid really did just graduate from university_.

Pride was not something that Sean would associate with himself so often, but he’d been in the agency long enough to consider himself as one of the best they have. So he had to excuse himself for not being able to properly accept the fact that an agent of his caliber could be so easily seduced and fooled by a kid like Harry Hart. Sean wondered if Harry really knew who he was at the time. Was their encountered had been planned? Did he pose as Alistair to distract MI6—or _him_? All the questions just fueled his bitterness even more.

“How was he as a student? Did anything stand out?” Sean turned his attention to Ben again, trying to distract himself from his own destructive thoughts.

Ben quickly scoffed at the question. “I think an easier question to answer would be ‘What _didn’t_ stand out about Harry Hart?’. He was great just at about everything, really. Sports, academics—“ Ben sighed. “—I can’t believe I’m saying this—but he was practically a genius. He was the only person that managed to hack into my system…” Ben sounded so defeated. His face looked hurt.

“Did you mean he hacked into your Neuron?!” asked Q in amazement. Ben gave him a hesitant nod without looking at him.

“Really?! Bloody hell...” shouted Q. Sean looked at Q and Ben in confusion. It always annoys him whenever these tech people are talking in their tech jargons.

“I don’t understand, what’s this Neuron you’re talking about?” asked Sean.

“This” Ben tapped his keyboard and a map of numbers and words lighted up on the screen. The map looked like strings of neurons.

“Neuron is a fail-safe protocol to wipe memory if there’s any attempt to access certain files. It’s an obfuscated code designed to conceal its true purpose. Security through obscurity” explained Ben.

“Right…” Sean regretted asking. He should have known better than to expect a coherent answer from the tech people.

“It’s supposed to be unhackable, 007. Even I can’t hack pass it. Which means whoever this kid is, whichever side he’s working for—he has the potential to be a big threat” said Q. His tone was dark and cautious.

“Then let’s make it our top priority to find out who he really is—or if he’s working for anyone—and what’s his real intention in all of this” said M calmly. “Q, you mentioned something about a facial recognition program? Can we start with that?” she asked.

“On it” Ben answered before Q could open his mouth. “Been loading the program for a couple of minutes. Should be finished right about—huh?” Ben paused as he looked at the screen. He started typing in a pace that left Sean raising his eyebrows.

“This is quite bizarre” Ben hit a button and about 30 CCTV images came on the screen, all showing Harry Hart in numerous parts of the world.

“Your boy seems travel a lot, 007” said Q.

“No, it’s not that” quipped Ben while still locking his eyes on the laptop screen, drawing the curious attention of the others in the room right to him.

“What do you mean then?” asked M impatiently.

“Well, most people—even 007 here—would have _at the very least_ hundreds of photos of them captured. Hart only have 30.” Ben finally turned to face the rest of the group to stress out the situation.

“And I’ve double checked, there’s nothing wrong with the program. So either he’s literally a ghost or—“

“He’s well trained in navigating himself through the cameras’ vantage points” said Sean.

The atmosphere of the room suddenly felt darker. Everyone was staring at the screen, trying to keep their eyes busy as if to compensate the realisation of Harry Hart’s alarming capabilities. Sean tried to identify the location of each photo. The boy looked perfectly normal in each frame, sometimes properly dressed in a well-fitted bespoke pinstripe double-breasted suit, sometimes smart casual attires—which Sean guessed to be a complement to a disguise. He quickly recognised a pattern.

“Most of the cities are in the Middle East…” Sean stepped forward and squinted at the screen. “Could you zoom in on that, please?” Sean pointed at a particular photo on the screen.

The boy was captured walking a crossroad in a long black overcoat, covering what looked like his signature pinstripe suit. He was carrying a dark brown cello case. Sean noticed the unfamiliar spec of glasses adorning the boy’s sculpted face.

“That street looks very familiar. Where is that?” Sean turned to Ben, who promptly twiddled with his keyboard.

“St. Petersburg. The picture was taken on October 15th last year” Ben fixed his glasses upward with his index finger as he looked up to see Sean. He was surprised to see the horror expression decorating everyone’s faces in the room.

“Umm… is there something that I should know about St. Petersburg?” asked Ben innocently.

Sean turned to M, quietly looking for a permission to speak, to which she replied with a slight nod. Sean walked to Ben’s side and stopped barely a couple of inch from him. He could see Ben flinching out of discomfort.

“Do you mind?” Sean gestured for Ben’s laptop. Ben shook his head.

“October 15th last year…” said Sean as he typed on the browser. “…was the day the late England’s Minister of State for Trade and Investment assassinated” he clicked a link and the screen showed a newspaper article of the assassination.

“To this day, the shooter remains unidentified. There were snipers on guard on more than a dozen posts in the perimeter, and no one saw anything. We’ve also checked all of the security cameras all around the perimeter and came up short. Well, at least until this” Sean sighed and put Harry Hart’s photo on the screen again.

“Are you suggesting that he _killed_ the minister?” It was hard enough for Ben to find out that his old university friend was not dead _and_ was being investigated by the MI6, but assassinating a minister took it to a whole other level.

“Well, it’d be unwise to accept this as a completely random act of coincidence, isn’t it?” Sean turned to M.

“007 is right. But let’s not jump to conclusion yet. If I’m not wrong that particular crossroad is about 3 km from the kill site. It’s way too far for him to make a successful kill shot—even” M was interrupted by a beeping sound coming from the monitor.

“The program just detected a new photo of him!” Ben rushed back to his laptop.

“It was taken about 10 minutes ago in…” He typed a string of code on the command window. “Lavizan, Iran”.

Sean froze at the name, it triggered quite an unpleasant memory for him. It was about 10 years ago that he lost a fellow agent there. He was only on his 2nd mission as 007.

“There was an old uranium enrichment site there. But it was demolished in 2004…” said Sean in a grim tone. “But if he’s there now…” he turned to M, cautiously alarming her of the possibilities with his gaze.

“Understood. Q, prepare a plane for 007. He’s going to Lavizan” ordered M.

“Yes, mam” Q nodded and gestured for Ben to leave with him.

“Kid” M stopped Ben just as he was about to leave the room.

“Mam?” asked Ben.

“I want you to keep a watch for him with this program of yours, and scrap up any record you could find of him from his time in Oxford—or maybe just anything that you can still recall about him” said M.

Ben was a bit surprised at the order. He did not expect to be given such responsibilities this early in his career at MI6. “Yes, mam!” he said.

 

* * *

  

“007, report your status” said Q over the comm.

“I’m on the 2nd floor of the building now. There’s sound of gunshots coming from the 3rd floor. I’m—“

Sean heard someone shouting behind him in Arabic and managed to hid inside one of the rooms from the blazes of gunshot that came after.

“This building might be more guarded than we thought. Can you scan it from there?” asked Sean as he tried to steal a couple of shots to his attackers.

“Just did. There seems to a huge black void on the 3rd floor. Ben thought the section must be covered or built with some sort of material that the scan couldn’t see through” explained Q.

Sean made another two shots and put his attackers on the ground. “How many of them up there?”

“About 5, no, 3” said Q. “Wait, now there’s just one”

“What? What do you mean? Are there 5, 3 or 1?” asked Sean impatiently as he ran through the hallway, searching for stairs to the 3rd floor.

“Well, there were 5 heat signatures, but then two disappeared, and now there’s only one” explained another voice which Sean recognised as Ben’s.

 _Is it Hart? Did he manage to kill whoever was up there?_ Sean cursed in his head. He detested the fact that he’s always a step behind this mysterious 20 year old kid.

“I see. And what about this building? Have you found anything? The place seems to be quite heavily guarded, so someone must be hiding something in here” Sean stopped running. He heard a faint of whispers in Arabic coming from the end of the hallway.

“Wait, I think I heard something” said Sean.

“Ah yes, two men on the stairway to the left” said Q.

He moved towards the wall beside him and crept his way forward. After a several steps, he found an emergency stairs door on the left side of the hallway. The whispers were coming from door. He put his head beside it to listen for any movements. Whoever was speaking seemed to be quite a distance away from the door. So Sean decided to open it quietly and crept inside.

He was right, there were two people in combat gears climbing their way up the stairs. They were merely 1 level below him. Sean walked towards the railings and looked for a kill shot angle. He fired two precise shots and both of them went down tumbling on the steps.

 _Shit. I’m out of ammo_. Sean looked around the dark stairs and found a couple of corpses lying on the steps towards the 3 rd floor. A familiar scenery from that night in Cannes. _He’s here_. Sean took a rifle from one of the corpses and cautiously made his way upstairs. His gaze shifted from one corpse to another as he zigzagged his way through them. All of the corpses died from headshots, which attested to the skills of the shooter. Not even a highly trained specialised agent like Sean could make consistent headshots in rapid combat situations. This only added to the mounting list on how dangerous Harry Hart could be.

Sean finally found a door. He listened for any movements behind it and found nothing. "No sound or movement from the room. I'm coming in" said Sean to the comm. He waited for Q to confirm but there was no reply. "Q? Come in" said Sean, it was greeted by yet another silence. Sean took out his comm from his ear and inspected it. _Broken? Jammed?_ He decided to proceed anyway. It wouldn't be his first time doing missions in the dark.

He opened the door and was greeted by the exact same bloody sight he witnessed in Cannes. There were about 12 corpses on the floor. Sean looked around and heard a familiar voice shouting in Arabic. The voice was coming from a vault, which seemed to be originally hidden behind disheveled bookshelf. He peeked inside it and promptly recognised the figure standing in the middle of it; who could forget that sensational shoulder-to-waist ratio and those long legs that almost leveled his. There was a man—in the same combat gear as the corpses on the floor—heavily wounded and kneeling helplessly in front of him. Unlike the last time, Sean made sure that his steps were as silent as the stone. But he’s not going to make the kill shot just yet, not before he finds out whoever the hell that kid really is.

Sean fired a shot aimed just an inch away from Hart’s right ear. The boy swiftly jumped behind the wounded man and shielded himself with his body. His right arm was readily pointing a gun at Sean’s direction. Sean could see a flash of surprise in the boy’s eyes.

“Sean!” The boy’s murderous eyes seemed to soften a bit for a second; his grip on the trigger was not as tight.

“Hello, Harry” said Sean in his coldest tone. His eyes were staring sharply into the boy’s eyes, which had changed back to the pearly brown shade that lured Sean the first time he met him. For a second there Sean felt like he could forget about all the disturbing facts about him and believe that the boy was caught up in all this mess unintentionally. But then Hart’s eyes quickly changed back to its murderous look as he heard Sean mentioning his name. His stance quickly firmed back and so was his grip on his gun.

“No more charade, Hart. Drop your gun, let the man go, and I may just let you—“ Sean didn’t even have a chance to finish his threat before the boy fired a shot at his rifle, sending it flying to the corner of the room. Sean retreated to the back of one of the shelves in the vault to shield himself.

The boy firmly stood back up, with his gun still aimed at Sean. “Stay away from me, Sean…” he paused, and for a moment Sean could believe that there was a gleam of sadness in his eyes, “I don’t want to hurt you”.

Sean’s jaw clenched. He felt his blood rushing rapidly to his brain. Not only did the boy so easily disarmed him, he was at _his_ mercy. The experienced agent in him was so angry at the boy, but more importantly, at himself for being so powerless.

“Not a chance, kid” Sean glared at him. All his reflexes kicked in.

The boy gave him a cold blank look. “So be it”. He fired three shots at him. Sean quickly jumped to the corner to pick his rifle.

Just as he picked it up, the wounded man’s body were kicked flying towards him, pushing Sean back to the wall. When Sean managed to shove the body out of his way, Hart was already gone. _Shit!_

Sean promptly got up and exited the vault. There were only two exits, the door on the right and the window on the left. He decided to check the latter first. From the window Sean saw the boy jumping and parkouring his way through the roof of the building in such efficiency. Sean tried to lock his rifle on him. It’s been awhile since he last made a long-range shot, and sure enough, the shot hardly scratched Hart. It only alerted him of Sean’s position.

The boy stopped his track and quickly turned to Sean’s direction. Without even taking a second to steady his hand or catch his breath, he fired a shot at Sean and it slashed through the edge of his left arm. Sean grunted in shock. It should be impossible to make a clear shot from the boy’s distance, especially without using a sniper gun, and yet the boy did it with such ease. _This boy is too dangerous to let go_.

Sean jumped from the window, landed hard at the roof bellow and started chasing the boy. He was far left behind and the boy moved in an exceedingly fast pace, but that’s not going to stop him. Sean paused and looked around him. The boy was already two level below him, he needed to find something that could help him close the distance at once. His gaze stopped at a line of pipe that was attached to the wall of the building. He made a sarcastic chuckle to himself. _Fuck it. Why not._

He hit the metal hinges that were holding the pipe to the wall, just to make enough space for the pipe to bend later. Once he’s done, he straightened himself up and took a deep breath.

“Here we go”. Sean climbed down the edge of the roof, right at the spot where the pipe was attached. He then released his grip from the roof, quickly grabbed the pipe, and kicked the wall of the building to give himself and the pipe a momentum. The kick sent Sean and the pipe downwards as it bent at his weight and the pull of gravity.

Sean’s vision went twirling. Just as he tried to focus, he felt himself hitting something. The impact was hard and painful, but not as hard as Sean had expected to be if he were to hit a concrete roof. The crash sent him rolling to the side. As he regained his visions and tried to look up, Sean realised that he was actually falling _on_ the boy. He let out a dark teasing chuckle and got himself up.

The boy dusted himself off and held up his head to meet Sean’s eyes. “You’re a persistent old bastard, aren’t you?”

That was the first time Sean really felt a sense of anger from the boy towards him. Without a warning, the boy charged at him. Sean brought up his hands in defense. But the boy was faster than he expected, in flash, a right jab was thrown at Sean’s face. And just before the force of the impact could send Sean’s body to the floor, the boy’s left hand caught the left side of his neck, stopping his body from falling. Then without a pause, he kicked Sean’s stomach with his right knee. In the breathless moment, Sean grabbed the boy’s shoulder and tried to hit him with his hand. But the boy promptly ducked. He then felt the boy’s grab on the top back of his right heel. And in a blitz, the boy swung Sean’s heel upward, sending him spiralling on the air and landing him hard on the ground.

Sean felt like he broke a couple of ribs. He didn’t have any strength left to get up. He looked and saw the boy jumping from the edge of the roof to the level below. _No. Not again!_ If anything, Sean’s pride as a 00 agent gave him the strength to get up again, because he’s not going to lose to a 20 year boy _again_. But it was too late, when he reached the edge of the roof; the boy was nowhere to be found.

 

* * *

  

Sean entered the control room and quickly rushed to his boss, “Mam, I—“

“Are you alright, 007?” she held up her hand and interrupted him.

“I—I’m fine, just a couple of broken ribs. Nothing serious” Sean didn’t expect such a caring question from her.

“Good” she paused to take a deep breath and stared sharply into Sean’s eyes. “This is the second time you bloody lost him, 007. There better not be a 3rd time”.

Sean’s felt his jaw getting tense. He clenched his hands, trying to contain his anger and shame towards himself. “No, mam”.

M gestured for Sean to follow her towards the front of the control room. “This boy is proving to be a high level threat, Sean” she flicked her eyes at him in seriousness.

“The building turned out to be a covert for uranium enrichment facility. Our team there found an abandoned lab in the third level of the basement” M gave Q a nod and the big screen showed images of the underground lab.

“That boy could have stolen or _tried_ to steal enriched uranium from there, or maybe he was one of the people in charge of the operation and he went rogue, taking the uranium for himself— _I don’t know_. There could be many theories, but the—“ M was interrupted by the sound of a ring tone which sparked a striking resemblance to one of those AC/DC songs.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry” said Ben as he rushed to pick his phone from his pocket. The caller ID was his mom’s. “Do you mind if I?—it’s my mom” he asked to M.

“Go ahead” answered her.

“Mum, I’m working!” whispered Ben to the phone.

“Hello, Ben” the voice coming from the phone was deep and smooth, it was not his mom’s. “You know, for a guy who pride himself on creating the most secure system in the world, you sure don’t put the same efforts on your loved ones, do you?” The voice let out a dark chuckle.

Ben’s hands trembled. “Harry…”


End file.
